Three matches, 307 points conceded, and still, in the heart of Ngong Road, there is a stubborn belief that the story of the Impala Kenya Cup campaign is far from over. To many neutral observers, the Gazelles look doomed after one of the most brutal openings in recent league history. To those inside the camp, the season is only just beginning.
A nightmare start that sent shockwaves through Kenyan rugby
The bare numbers are shocking. Impala RFC opened their 2025/26 Kenya Cup season with an 87–5 defeat to KCB Rugby, followed by a 97–6 loss to Menengai Oilers. Any hope that those two heavy reverses would be the low point vanished in Kakamega, where defending champions Kabras RFC ran riot in a 123-0 demolition at the ASK Showground. Three games in, three heavy losses, and a staggering total of 307 points conceded.
For a club with Impala’s tradition, these are not just bad days at the office, they cut into pride and identity. The scoreboard has not simply registered defeat, it has screamed a warning about the growing gap between the Gazelles and the traditional heavyweights of the Kenya Cup.
Why George Ndemi is not giving up on the season
Yet, in the eye of this storm, head coach George Ndemi has refused to surrender. Speaking to Mozzart Sport, he insisted that the worst is already behind them and that Impala still have a path to the playoffs. In his view, the opening run of fixtures, against KCB Rugby, Menengai Oilers and Kabras RFC, represented the highest level of difficulty the schedule could throw at them, and surviving that stretch offers a strange kind of reassurance for the Impala RFC faithful.
Ndemi has done the maths, and his message to players and supporters is simple. With nine matches remaining, he believes Impala only need to win five games to secure a place in the Kenya Cup playoffs. That target may sound ambitious given the early form, but it also provides a tangible goal around which the group can rally.
From heavy defeats to a clear target
There is a psychological shift in moving from survival mode to a chase for the top eight. Instead of dwelling on the record scores conceded, Ndemi is focusing his squad on the fixtures to come, especially those against mid-table and lower-ranked sides. Those matches, in his view, will define the season, not the early poundings by giants like Kabras RFC.
By resetting expectations internally, the coach is trying to take the sting out of the humiliating defeats. The argument is clear, if you open your season against the three strongest teams in the country, the results may be ugly, but they are not necessarily a fair reflection of what you can achieve across a full campaign.
Internal instability and a disrupted pre-season
To understand how Impala ended up in this position, you have to look beyond scorelines and into the club’s recent turbulence. At the beginning of the season, the club parted ways with head coach Louis Kisia after the expiry of his one-year contract. Soon after, assistant coach Jackson Kalonje Katunga also left, which left the technical bench bare during a crucial preparation window for the Kenya Cup season.
The timing of these departures could hardly have been worse. Instead of building cohesion and solid systems ahead of a brutal opening run, Impala were forced to scramble. That void was eventually filled when the club recalled George Ndemi, but by then, critical weeks had already been lost, and the team were on the back foot before a ball was kicked.
Why the coaching transition matters on the pitch
Ndemi himself has acknowledged that the coaching upheaval has played a role in the disastrous start. Transition takes time, he has noted, and while the committee made the decisions to move on from Kisia and Kalonje, the consequences have been felt on the field. Preparation is everything at this level, especially when facing the top three sides in the country in consecutive weeks, and Impala simply were not ready for that intensity, a reality that is written brutally in the scorelines.
However, Ndemi has also been quick to stress that this is not a broken squad. Since his return, he says he has seen a group with real potential, players who can compete if given structure, clarity and time. That balance of realism and optimism shapes his public stance, yes, the early defeats were damaging, but they are not the final verdict on what this team can be.
The power of memory and rugby history
To reinforce his belief that seasons are not defined by a handful of humiliating afternoons, Ndemi has reached back into Impala’s past. He reminded observers of the time Impala lost 95–0 to rivals Quins, only for Quins to go on and win the Kenya Cup that same season. For him, it is a living example that one result, even a devastating one, is only a chapter, not the entire story, in a rugby campaign.
That memory serves two functions. It is a cautionary tale against writing off Impala too early, and it is a source of motivation inside the dressing room. If rivals could turn a huge win into a championship, then Impala, in theory, can turn huge losses into fuel for a comeback.
The mental battle after conceding 307 points
Numbers like 87–5, 97–6 and 123-0 linger in the mind. For players, they are not just statistics, they are experiences felt in the body, in every missed tackle, every defensive line broken, every try celebrated by the opposition. Recovering from that takes more than tactical tweaks, it demands a deep mental reset and a commitment to pride in small wins, such as a solid defensive set or a well-executed phase in the next match, which is critical for team morale.
In such a context, Ndemi’s messaging is as much about psychology as it is about strategy. By framing the start of the season as an unusually tough gauntlet against the top three, he is trying to protect his squad from being crushed by self-doubt. Instead of seeing themselves as a team that cannot compete, he wants them to view themselves as a group that has already faced the worst and can now fight on more level ground.
Targeting mid-table and lower-ranked opponents
The roadmap is clear. With nine matches left, Impala have to turn Ngong Road into a fortress, and they must treat every clash against mid-table and lower-ranked sides as a mini final. These are the fixtures that will decide if they can salvage their Kenya Cup campaign and edge into the playoffs.
This will require sharper discipline, smarter game management, and a significant tightening of the defence. Conceding 307 points in three matches is unsustainable for any team harbouring top-eight ambitions, so the first priority will be to slow down the rate at which opponents are breaking through. Even incremental improvements, fewer missed tackles, better kicking for territory, more composure under pressure, can tilt close games in their favour.
Why five wins are the magic number
Ndemi’s belief that five wins will be enough for playoff rugby is grounded in his reading of the league’s competitive balance. In a season where the giants are likely to keep collecting victories, the real battle usually takes place around the middle of the table, where a cluster of teams fight for the last few playoff spots. A team that can string together wins against their direct rivals in that zone often punches its ticket to the knockout rounds, even if they struggle badly against the top three, which is exactly the pattern Impala are hoping to follow as they chase the playoffs.
By putting a clear number on the target, Ndemi is also adding structure to the challenge. Instead of feeling that they must win almost every remaining match, the players can work with milestones. Each victory is one step closer to five, and each step helps erase the sting of those early defeats.
The emotional weight of the Kabras defeat
Among all the losses, the 123-0 defeat to Kabras RFC in Kakamega will linger longest. It was not only another heavy scoreline, it came against the defending champions, at their ASK Showground fortress, where they are notoriously ruthless. For Impala, it felt like the bottom of a very deep hole, a moment when even optimistic supporters might have wondered if the team was out of its depth in the current season.
Yet in high-level sport, rock bottom can also be a turning point. Once you have lived through a result like that, there is a certain freedom in knowing that the worst has already happened. From there, the only acceptable response is to fight for redemption, play by play and game by game.
A familiar opponent in a different competition
As if the schedule had not already been unforgiving enough, Impala now face Kabras RFC again, this time in the Enterprise Cup Round of 16. The game is slated for Saturday, 13 December, and it arrives at a delicate moment. On one hand, it is a knockout fixture, a competition with its own prestige. On the other, it pits Impala once again against the team that handed them their heaviest defeat in this campaign.
For Ndemi and his players, the Enterprise Cup tie against Kabras can serve multiple purposes. It is a chance to test whatever adjustments they have made since the league loss, to measure whether the defensive shape is improving and to show, at the very least, that they can compete more fiercely than the scoreline in Kakamega suggested.
What Impala need to show against Kabras
Realistically, few will expect Impala to suddenly overturn the gulf that was exposed in the 123-0 result. But the metrics of progress do not have to be limited to the final score. If the tackle count is higher, if the line speed is better, if the error count is lower, and if Impala can impose their own phases of attack, then the Enterprise Cup meeting can be a step forward, even if Kabras still advance, which would help restore some belief.
Perhaps most importantly, the players need to walk off the pitch feeling that they have represented the badge with pride. That emotional reset, turning from humiliation to resistance, can have a powerful effect when the focus shifts back to the Kenya Cup fixtures against opponents closer to their level.
A club caught between tradition and transition
Impala’s story this season is not just about tactics or talent, it is about identity. This is a club used to competing with the best, producing internationals, and shaping the narrative of Kenyan rugby. To find themselves on the wrong end of record defeats is jarring, especially for fans who grew up associating the Gazelles with excellence on the Ngong Road scene.
The coaching changes, the disrupted preparation, and the brutal fixture list have all fed into a sense of a club in transition. Transitions, in sport as in life, rarely follow a smooth upward curve. There are dips, painful ones, before the curve can bend back in a positive direction.
The thin line between collapse and comeback
That is where Impala stand now, on a thin line between collapse and comeback. If they fail to stabilise defensively, if morale continues to drop, and if the losing habit becomes ingrained, they risk being drawn into a season-long struggle to simply remain in the top flight. Ndemi has admitted that one of the primary aims is to remain in the Kenya Cup, a reminder that relegation fears are never far away in such a volatile campaign.
On the other hand, if they can regroup, lean into the experience and potential Ndemi believes exists in the squad, and seize those key fixtures against fellow mid-table sides, the narrative could shift quickly. Sports history is full of teams that looked dead in the water early, only to surge into contention after a timely reset.
Why this campaign still matters for Kenyan rugby
Beyond the Impala fan base, the Gazelles’ struggle touches on broader questions for Kenyan rugby. The widening gap between the likes of KCB Rugby, Menengai Oilers and Kabras RFC and the rest of the league is reflected in scorelines like 87–5, 97–6 and 123-0. Those results prompt uncomfortable conversations about competitive balance, resources, and development pathways within the Kenya Cup structure.
Impala’s ability, or inability, to close that gap over the remainder of the season will be watched closely. If a traditional club cannot adapt and respond, it may signal deeper structural issues that go beyond one team’s coaching changes or tactical evolution.
Holding on to belief at Ngong Road
For now, the mood at Ngong Road is one of defiant hope. Ndemi has been clear, this is a good team with a lot of potential, one bad month does not define a season, and the most challenging part of their calendar is already behind them. The players, bruised but not broken, know that every training session and every fixture from here on will test their character as much as their skill on the field.
Fans will return to the stands with mixed emotions, a blend of loyalty, anxiety and curiosity. They have seen the worst already. Now they want to know if their team can rise from it.
What comes next for Impala
The path forward is brutally simple. Improve defensively. Compete harder at the breakdown. Build confidence in set pieces. Target those five wins that, in Ndemi’s calculated optimism, could yet deliver a place in the playoffs. And in every match, large or small, play with a level of pride that refuses to be reduced to early scorelines.
Whether Impala’s Kenya Cup campaign becomes a cautionary tale or a story of resilience will depend on how they navigate the pressure of the coming weeks. For now, one truth stands above the wreckage of 307 points conceded, their season is not over. The Gazelles have been wounded, but as their coach keeps insisting, they still believe they can run.
